1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of musical instruments, and more particularly to a musically resonant apparatus with continuously variable resonances and methods for increasing the tonal complexity and quality of live and recorded musical instruments.
2. History of the Art
All music traditions evolved from, and are rooted in acoustic instruments and how their sound both inspired the musicians and commanded the attention of those listening to them. The evolution of the dulcimer into a piano, with a pause at the harpsichord is a prime example of the natural development of musical instruments toward louder and improved tone quality.
The desire for a rich and satisfying tone quality also holds true for sound engineers and music listeners who experience music through the medium of recordings. Because of this, the opportunity for improving the tone quality of an instrument is not restricted to only the “now” of a live performance. It is equally to be found at the “in between” of the recording, mixing, and mastering stages, and even the “later” of a listener's living room. However, a common problem is that a complex, rich and satisfying tone often equates with “expensive,” and this fact often presents severe limits to those on a limited budget, especially students.
Tone quality is not a single entity that is universal for all instruments, or even for one type of instrument. However, if there is one single aspect of an instrument's tone that denotes quality, it is complexity. A complex tone has a wide range of harmonics in a rich and satisfying blend. The relative strengths of these different harmonics are combined in the ear by a process called fusion, which results in both the perception of pitch and the characteristic tone of the instrument.
It is well known that musical instruments are extremely sensitive to what they are made from and how they are made. If the species of wood used for a guitar's sides and back is changed, a radical alteration is made to the sound of an otherwise identical guitar. This sensitivity to the resonant qualities of the materials that an instrument is made from extends down to its smaller parts and finish. What might be considered inconsequential to those not experienced in a particular craft still affects an instrument's sound in ‘subtle but significant’ ways. A violin's varnish is well known even to many outside the field of instruments and music to have an important effect on its sound. Other “minor” details important to those in their fields include the thickness of a trombone's bell, and the type of insulation on the magnet wire of a guitar pickup. However, vibration-sensitivity to ‘minor’ details is not just confined to musical instruments in this modern world of recordings.
While computer and digital technologies are an important driving force in the music world today, so is a technology that was almost completely replaced before it made a major comeback. At one point in both the recording and the home-listening communities, the tube was almost completely superceded by transistors and analog integrated circuits.
A few recording engineers and record producers retained some of their tube signal processing electronics instead of trading them in on the solid-state versions available since the 1970's. They used these tube products to add a warmth and smoothness they couldn't achieve with solid-state equipment. Their work became so well regarded that others started copying their methods, and these others too became widely copied.
Because of this, the tube has made an almost miraculous comeback and vintage tube electronics are today expensive, high-status items found in every major recording studio. Tubes are an accepted symbiotic companion to the almost universal use of digital recorders and signal processors. The recent advent of relatively inexpensive digital signal processors and recorders has turned a specialized trend for vintage tube electronics into a general trend that covers any and all tube products, and extends down to the smallest home recording studio.
The same comeback has occurred with a significant number of home listeners. They feel that music has a more natural and “live” quality when vintage tube components are used in their audio systems.
Many tube products are available, for home and professional use, in all price ranges up to a hundred thousand dollars or more. The tube renaissance seems unstoppable; some companies that opposed the trend several years ago have had to publicly change their stance and reintroduce tube products they stopped making 25 or more years ago.
The vibration-sensitivity of a musical instrument is paralled in tube equipment because of the tube's microphonic nature. Instead of being impervious to vibrations, a tube will convert some percentage of the vibrational energy to which it is subjected into an AC voltage, which is added to the signal it is passing. Every tube is microphonic to one degree or another, and they often become more microphonic as they age. While the vibration-sensitivity of a musical instrument is taken into account during its construction, the vibration-sensitivity of a tube is usually ignored. Electronics using tubes cannot help but often be as sensitive as musical instruments to the materials and techniques of construction.
Vintage tube products were made from heavy gauge steel, used wax covered capacitors and big carbon composition resistors with heavy gauge wire leads, and their cloth-covered wires were soldered point-to-point. Modern tube products are usually made with the thinnest possible sheet metal and/or plastic chassis, hard epoxy-coated capacitors and small ceramic-core resistors with thin wire leads, and their plastic-insulated wires are terminated with plastic-covered, thin-metal quick disconnects. The profusion of thinner and smaller parts cannot help but create an abundance of resonances much higher in frequency than those of 25 or more years ago.
As a result, modern tube electronics seldom have the same warm and smooth sound of prized vintage tube electronics, and the cost of vintage electronics in every genre of use is ever increasing. This puts them out of range for many who would otherwise prefer the added warmth and smoothness that they bring to the sound of ones favorite musical instruments, live or recorded. However, the same microphonic characteristic that causes the problem can be used to counteract it.
Musical instruments have many avenues for tonal improvement after having left the factory. There are many aftermarket manufacturers of reeds, mouthpieces, strings, pickups, bridges, tuning nuts, etc., all for the improvement of an instrument's tone. As tube electronics are vibration-sensitive like musical instruments, they can also have their resonance signature modified after leaving the factory. Obvious ways include clamping or attaching resonators directly to the chassis of a tube product. However, there are other, less obvious methods that also allow the modification of the resonance signature of vibration-sensitive tube products. The following example is given to illustrate the fact that while the remoteness of a set of resonances may seem at first glance to obviate its ability to effect tone, these resonances are in fact often a significant contributor to overall tonal quality.
It is common knowledge that the degree of tension in a musician's arm and shoulder muscles has a significant effect on an instrument's tone. A reduction of muscle tenseness will mellow not only the musician but also the tone produced by an instrument. The resonant energy of the strings passes through the bow-hair, through the wood of the bow, and into the musician. This energy is filtered by the resonances in the bow-hair, the wood of the bow, and the combination of the mass and spring-rate of the musculature of the arms and shoulders, and coupled back into the instrument where it adds to the resulting tonality.
Some of these effects of external resonances on a musical instrument also find a parallel with tube equipment. The flexibility of input and output cables is not a barrier to most transverse or longitudinal vibrations. These cables are solidly and mechanically coupled to a rigid chassis that provides little to stop vibrations from being conducted to microphonic tube elements. The energy conducted through these cables is sufficient to affect the tone of tube equipment. This situation has an analogy in the energy conducted through a bow or the muscles of a musician.
An instrument's tonality is also a result of how long it has been played. The difference between a new instrument and an old one that has been in constant use for decades is in part that the old instrument has become more full-bodied and less strident in sound through having been played for many years. This is a process called “break-in.” If an older, well used instrument is not played for months, there will also be a re-break-in period. However, it will be measured in days or weeks, rather than the many years necessary to break-in a new instrument. An associated phenomenon can be called an instrument's tonal memory.
Some musician's are reticent to loan their instrument to another musician, because when it is returned, it will not sound the same as when it left. The tone slowly returns to its former character in a week or less. This temporary break-in of new tonal characteristics is thought to be the result of the differing playing techniques of the players, and also from their differing bow and musculature resonances. While an instrument's tonal memory can be an annoyance, I have discovered that it can also be used for beneficial purposes.
Prior Art
Musical instruments are usually collections of important resonating parts such as strings, reeds, bars, plates, air pipes and chambers, and the accompanying connecting/positioning parts that are also resonant and contribute to an instrument's tonality. Acoustic improvements to musical instruments are usually comprised of additions of resonant parts or an additional mass strategically placed.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,602,548 and 5,889,222, are both concerned with strategically placed weights.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,491 concerns the addition of multiple internal resonators to affect a single frequency range.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,127,611 concerns the use of multiple external resonators to affect multiple frequency ranges.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,265,513 concerns the use of resonant materials as inserts in a strategic place.
A slightly different approach is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,832 where a dampening compound is used to eliminate non-pleasing structural resonances.
Deficiencies in Prior Art
The approaches made to effect various tonal modifications often have side effects that will either restrict or eliminate their usefulness. For example, a “weight” or a “mass” is usually made from a metal. Its dimensions and the resonances they cause, as well as the resulting metallic coloration of the upper harmonics of the instrument is usually ignored. Other approaches will often be too complex for widespread use by either craftsmen or musicians.
The weight used in U.S. Pat. No. 4,602,548 is comprised of a mass that is preferably made of brass, and is fastened to a piano's bridge and soundboard with a threaded steel stud. While the sonic impact may be as desired at a tonal discontinuity as described, the additional bright and metallic resonances contributed by the steel stud and the small dimensions of the brass compensation weight may not be welcome, as its effect is not just felt at the tonal discontinuity. A musician desiring a warm, not-bright tone could easily find this side effect undesirable. Furthermore, many musicians will not welcome or allow the drilling of holes in their pianos.
Another focused approach is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,889,222 where a weight is attached to various portions of various stringed instruments. This calibrated-weight clamp has intrinsic resonances that are not given sufficient importance in their impact on an instruments sound. For instance, it is well known that there are two major schools concerning cello tonality. There is the warmer/darker/richer-is-better school, and the brighter-is-better school. A steel, brass, or aluminum device will not satisfy the former while only possibly delighting the latter because its metallic construction will augment certain portions of the instrument's upper harmonics. I have discovered that the inherent upper harmonic augmentation of metallic resonators clamps or otherwise, can easily cause an increase in the friction from drawing the bow across the strings. Usually this will not be appreciated, and thus can easily negate any benefit provided by the weight.
An instrument that has had the complex sonic treatment found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,491 will at least in part be full and warm sounding, which is the stated goal of this patent. However, if the wrong material is selected for these fixed resonators or for the resonator support bars, it can easily cancel the good will created by the augmented lower harmonics. While the resonator's modulus of elasticity and length can be selected to create a specific fundamental resonance, the accompanying harmonic series can easily be rich in unpleasant upper harmonics. This trade-off will be unacceptable to many musicians. The inherent complexity can also cause problems in the event of needed repair at a distance from the builder of the instrument.
The invention in U.S. Pat. No. 6,127,611 is adjustable, and therefore quite versatile in its tonal modification capabilities. However, in the main, the adjustments result in stepped, and not continuously variable, resonant frequency changes. It is possible to find a situation where one can find resonant combinations that bracket a desired tonal modification, without getting it exactly right. This eventuality is somewhat counteracted by the high number of adjustments possible. However, many musicians will find this same high number of adjustments intimidating.
The invention in U.S. Pat. No. 5,265,513 is adaptable in that multiple tonal results are possible by substitution of different resonant members. This results in “ . . . an extremely large number of variations . . . ” which cannot help but also be intimidating to both the musician wanting a specific tonality from his or her particular instrument, and the artisan trying to learn how to accomplish it.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,832 anti-resonant hot-melt adhesive is used to dampen structural resonances in brass instruments that contribute unpleasant harmonics to an instrument's tone. To most musicians this will be considered unsightly, and significantly detract from their desire to use this technique. To many musicians, looks are often more important than the end result.
Microphonic electrical and electronic products also have parts whose resonances contribute to their tonality. Traditionally, passive and active equalization (EQ) has been used since its development as the usual means of compensating less than perfect recording and playback situations and equipment. However, EQ introduces frequency dependent phase shift into the signal. As more EQ is used, more phase shift occurs. Many musicians and engineers would rather not inject this type of distortion into their music, as they find it sonically objectionable. Their preferred solution is to use equipment and spaces that do not need much, if any EQ. This can be an expensive solution, and therefore presents limits to the many that would prefer it, but can not afford it.
There is no prior art concerning a continuously variable apparatus for increasing the tonal complexity and quality of a musical instrument that easily adds multiple complementary mechanical resonances to microphonic electrical or electronic equipment.
A simple yet highly effective apparatus that can significantly improve the tonal complexity and quality of multiple families of acoustic musical instruments, and one having no unknown side effects has no prior art.
There is no prior art concerning a single continuously variable apparatus that can be configured and used to increase the tonal complexity and quality of multiple varieties of musical instruments, and multiple varieties of microphonic electrical or electronic equipment, as the need arises. The need for such a complementary resonant apparatus is realized by the present invention.